


I Like You For You

by Val_Creative



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon - Book, Nicknames, Romantic Friendship, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:21:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22270216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: Iorek has a habit of rescuing Lee like he’s some damsel.
Relationships: Iorek Byrnison/Lee Scoresby
Comments: 16
Kudos: 43





	I Like You For You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).



> I got to be a pitch hitter for **HDM Holiday Exchange 2019** and I got **venndaai**! They were interested in getting something of this ship and I thought it would be a great challenge! 🐻🤠 They're fun! Hope everyone likes this! I did throw in a bunch of little stuff with "Once Upon A Time in The North" which y'all should totally read.

*

It's nothing but a small harbor town. Narrow streets. Dark stone and imported timber used for the structures in the open town center like storehouses, a clothing workshop, a bank, and some unnamed decrepit oratory covered in a film of birdshit.

The snow underneath Iorek's paws has been dirtied to a muddy grey-brown. He can see naval flags flying off the waterfront. A coal tanker tied up in the quay, sitting low in the waters with its cargo unloaded. Vessels and schooners chug powerfully towards their destinations. Two anbaric-powered cranes work on a new shipment, retrieving the gigantic fish oil barrels and lumber.

Most of this town remains quiet with the exception of the faint crying of seagulls and Iorek's huffs. The strong northeastern wind blows through his ivory fur. Men raiding the nearby depot glimpse him coming and yell out in strangled, shocked voices.

They run.

He's not there for them.

Iorek roars out, formidable, deafeningly loud, vibrating the nightfall around him and shaking himself off. Rows of gas storage tanks. Broken tractors. There's a scent of gunpowder and rich, fresh blood in the air. He isn't put at ease for it.

Within the darkness of this empty, dusty warehouse, Iorek discovers Lee, propped upright to a fallen wood beam, his temple glistening and bleeding slightly. His feet and wrists bound in rope. One of Lee's own handkerchiefs knotted around his mouth in a makeshift gag. Hester has already sensed Iorek's thunderous, mighty approach, her long ears twitching.

"Oh thank goodness," she mutters, stretching out her little hare back-legs. Hester can no more move from her position than Lee. But it helps that his jackrabbit — no, _Arctic hare_ — of a daemon allows him some sympathy and it feels less restrained.

Lee muffles out something triumphantly, shoulders shifting, as soon as he sees those Iorek's small, black eyes.

"I rather like you like this, Lee…"

Iorek's voice rumbles out.

The lean, sardonic man hesitates, and then Lee's face becomes the picture of amusement. He cocks an eyebrow suggestively.

"It's much quieter," Iorek adds bluntly.

He drones a laugh when Lee quickly glares. Hester laughs too. "Oh, c'mon—that was _hysterical_ —!" she crows, quarreling with Lee shouting through his gag at her. "Well, it ain't _MY FAULT_ you shot your mouth and got your ass handed to you during a barfight—!"

With a careful swipe of one single bear-claw, the ropes loosen.

*

Lee vanishes again in an hour.

He remembers Lee in his twenties, overly confident to the point of self-endangerment. High-spirited. Lee muttered over his book of The Elements of Aerial Navigation, fiddling with gas-valves and hitting ducts and fasteners with the butt of his revolver until gauges correct themselves. When Lee wasn't thinking with his and Hester's sharper instincts, he was thinking with his _downstairs_ instincts.

Iorek doesn't care for this island-town with its suspicious folks and refineries of seal oil and rock oil. There's a hint of black rot in the overcrowded fish markets. He passes by the tannery, finding a sprawling, gaslit alleyway connecting to another set of alleys.

Lee snores lightly against a barrel, arms crossed, his hat lowered over his eyes. He reeks of smokeleaf and cheap vodka.

With a low, suppressed growl, Iorek searches and lifts one of the trashcan steel lids, banging the top of Lee's skull. The man jolts awake, gripping at his dirty old pistol, leveling it between Iorek's eyes sullen with anger. "God _damn it_! Iorek!" Lee curses, bringing down his gun-hand immediately. His words manifest a tad bit slurred. "You dun' hit a drunken man! Damn!"

Iorek nudges him up to his feet with a massive paw, gripping the back of Lee's coat with his teeth.

"Hey, hey! _Hey_!" Lee yelps. " _ALRIGHT_!"

He's acting no more than a vagrant, dropping into a sit onto the barrel, removing his hat and pushing his leather-gloved fingers over his face. Lee's thin, black mustache uncombed. Up close, there's pickled trout noxious on Lee's breath under the vodka.

"You came here to get work."

"I know, I know…" Lee rubs his jaw, blinking slow-witted. He stares grumpily into Iorek's unreadable and hardened expression. "Ss'been a lousy day. We're get outta here in the mornin' straight away… there ain't nothin' for none of us here…"

"Good."

Despite his brittle, difficult frustration, Iorek can't help but feel protective of this human. So absurd and familiar to him. Hester thoughtfully eyes the look on Iorek's countenance, hopping herself onto Lee's boots and sniffing. "Remember Dudinka?" Lee drawls, forlorn and fanciful. "Said if we made it out alive… I wss'gun make an honest bear of you… I dunno, find you a nice she-bear…"

Iorek's snout wiggles in obvious disdain. He huffs.

"Marriage does not suit a bear like me."

Lee chuckles, his cheeks blotch-red from all of the drinking. "Hell, I can relate," he murmurs. "Those Northern clan witches were pretty as peaches, but I couldn'…" Lee's mouth flattens. One of his hands fist and taps against the side of his knee. He's normally as pensive as a rainstorm on the White Sea, which is impossible, and Iorek doesn't know what to make of this.

"Besides, I got you," Lee interrupts his own churning, invading thoughts, grinning at his old friend. "Now if you had been a _wrrrm_ —" he slurs again, momentarily confused. " _Wommmern_ —" Lee pinches his fingers over his lips, inhaling, " _Mmn_ —"

Hester lets out a soft, irked noise.

"Lady, a lady," Lee announces cheerfully, placing back on his hat and tipping it. "I woulda swept you off your feet. Yess'sir."

"And if I had been a man?"

Iorek didn't think anything of the question, perhaps too curious than what's appropriate, until Lee's expression shifts into one of pure glee.

"Oh, ohh, we woulda done— _terrible_ —" he breathes out a throaty, rumbling laugh, as deep as Iorek's own roars, "— _amazin'_ —" Lee's dark eyes widen, his smiling, visibly bruised mouth going slack, "—I wouldn' even know what'ta say 'bout this, but—shucks, Iorek—I like you better this way. None of that gobbledygook matters between us. We can be honest."

"Yes," Iorek says quietly.

"Though I gotta say, for the record—" Lee scoots himself on the wood-plank barrel, getting closer until Hester moves off his boots. His brown leather-gloved hands reach for him, cupping the sides of Iorek's enormous bear-muzzle fondly. He whispers and grins with his front teeth exposing, "—you're _mighty adorable_. For a cranky ole talkin' armored bear."

His daemon kicks Lee's ankle in reprimanding. "And you have had far too much to drink," Iorek tells him, unmoved.

Lee shrugs.

"Per'aps," he declares, lowering his hands and climbing to his feet. "G'night then, _York Burningson_."

A prick of tenderness echoes within Iorek's chest.

"To you, _Mr. Scarsby_."

*


End file.
